The problem is that we have so many different viewpoints on ATS that about 90% of the community will disagree with any viewpoint that is put up.
If "negative" indicators are allowed, then that 90% will pile in and every post on ATS will be drowning in the things.

This comes up rather frequently, and while I won't presume to speak on behalf of the owners, I can say they have never been receptive to rating
systems that are negative in nature, can be used to "vote down" threads or posts, or might otherwise be used to discourage members from sharing
their honest opinions on the topics.

So while we can express support with stars and flags, when we disagree, we have to do it the old-fashioned way: with words.

This would not be the first time that this solution to the public opinion indicator issue has been bought up. The truth is that for an indicator to be
effecitve, it ought to display as much information , for as little effort and complexity as possible.

However, the trouble is , with the amount of varied opinion on a certain subject, the indicator would never give a useful result as to how useful, or
informative a post or OP might have been.

At first i thought that it is about travel between stars....
But in our sad reality we cannot do it due to our limited technology.
Just as due to our limited social development, negative stars will simply create divided mobs of people,starring and "death starring" in mass.
So i doubt it will be any good.In my opinion.
What will be better is to simply express your own opinion in the thread and not start star wars on ATS.

That was already tried some years ago, and the result was that, in some cases, as soon as a thread was created, it was "attacked" by people that
didn't like that member, so they started with more negative than positive views, just because of who the thread starter was.

I don't see any "negative starring" method as being possible without being abused.

Better yet would be "neutrality" -marker for a post. This is not "like or dislike"-thing at all.
Not only the neutrality would thrive to better quality of posting of the site, too pro- or anti- posting could be automatically suppressed to be
visible only by clicking the post.

Besides this message hiding to be visible through clicking should be used for offtopic and other types of moderated posts as well...

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
my opinion :
if you agree with the theme of a thread - you can star and flag with just a single mouse click
if you wish to disagree - you have to post a rebuttal - which can be ignored
stars and flags are recorded and are permanent
is this logical ?

Yes very... it would mean that instead of a hoard of trolls just posting negative stars out of spite, they would actually have to take the time to
explain why they disagree..

and if its just because they troll... they face the dreaded Off Topic flags

In my opinion, a star is meant to highlight a post which has outstanding value and adds to the thread.
I think the current system is misused by the members.

A like/dislike system is the dumb alternative to a discussion. It's like the power to express opinions without commiting oneself to thought process
and personal involvement. Easy, comfortable and coward

We don't want to read, write, think. One click is already exhausting enough

When we see a post with many stars that we think was starred just because some people support that poster, regardless of the post content, we may
think "how did it get all those stars just for this?", but with the negative star system what I noticed was that people, when seeing an opening post
with more negative points than positive, simply ignored the thread.

Abusing a positive system, although not correct, doesn't affect negatively the thread or post.

Agreed, it goes against the point of debate, and yes sometimes it does get heated and names get flung around, but for the most part if you don't
agree with what someone is saying here, just giving a thumbs down is kind of defeating the purpose of a forum site like this.
If you have an issue with a post or have a differing point of view, you should be bringing to the table why it is you don't agree, or consider the
other person's opinion to be wrong.
It's called intelligent debate after all.

When we see a post with many stars that we think was starred just because some people support that poster, regardless of the post content, we may
think "how did it get all those stars just for this?", but with the negative star system what I noticed was that people, when seeing an opening post
with more negative points than positive, simply ignored the thread.

Abusing a positive system, although not correct, doesn't affect negatively the thread or post.

Actually a title really holds more for me personally than how many stars it has. Every person here has their own interests as far as conspiracy goes,
and often a well presented, well thought out post by someone holds more weight than how many stars they have.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
just look at the star count of the OP of a few topics on the hoax bin front page [ the flags are stripped ] - but several have scores - 1 over 100 ,
1 over 90
its all just sensationalist crap - and people lap it up
are they really so stupid that they fall for it every time - or are some doing it for the lulz ?

Well not everyone agrees that everything should go to the hoax bin

Sensationalism is what people go for... Make a thread on something with a scientific title and boring reports and it will flop... ad a little
sensationalism like the main stream news media does and you have a hot thread to get your point across and give the skeptics something to rant
about.

A scientifically accurate thread will die a quick death here because you can't make a "Hey cool thread" post and there is nothing to debunk so
there is no activity

But seriously who cares about stars anyway? You can't spend them on anything and many that were top posters have just vanished and all their stats
went poof... So who care about stars really?

Aren't we here to share what we believe while ATS gets rich on our sweat?

I got an idea... instead of lurking in threads you don't agree with, make some of your own good ones and you too can collect some stars

Sure if you use it that way. Things are as good as what we can make out of them.

You can use a plate as a Frisbee and claim it's a bad Frisbee because it doesn't glide.

If we are too stupid or maybe better said trying to be too manipulative to make use of this system then it's better to scrap it completely than to add
a dislike button.
If it's thought to not be working properly, removing it solves the problem, a "dislike" will not solve anything.

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